


Did You Think I'd Crumble? (The Give Me One More Shot Remix)

by zarabithia



Category: Blue Beetle, DCU - Comicsverse, Marvel 616, Young Avengers
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Femslash, Gen, Remix, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They couldn't stop the last Doom.  But they'll stop the next one.  Because acceptance might be a stage for people other than Brenda and Kate, but so is quitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did You Think I'd Crumble? (The Give Me One More Shot Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milleniumrex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milleniumrex/gifts).
  * Inspired by [New York Girls](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7422) by milleniumrex. 



> In order for Children's Crusade to make sense with the rest of the Marvel timeline, I am putting Kate at roughly 17 when it ended. Thanks to [Gloria Gaynor](http://www.lyrics007.com/Gloria%20Gaynor%20Lyrics/I%20Will%20Survive%20Lyrics.html) and [Alabama](http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/alabama/give-me-one-more-shot-4206.html) for the title.

Somehow, Brenda had always thought that coming to New York would mean coming to NYU for a nice, relaxing tour in preparation for her freshman year.

It was funny how finding out that her aunt was a criminal mastermind could change all of Brenda's plans so quickly, incredibly and completely. It was also funny how finding out that her two best friends had known about it all along could also change her plans. 

It was nice of S.H.I.E.L.D. to make their move so close to graduation, though. 

Pretty convenient of them, actually. 

~ 

**futurelantern:** Blonde haired woman who locked up your aunt offered to teach me to shoot.  
 **angergirl:** I bet your mom loved that.  
 **angergirl:** Your dad too, for that matter.  
 **futurelantern:** They loved it even more when the redhead offered to teach Jaime how to handle his weapon.

~

"You haven't actually done anything wrong," the blonde agent in the tight white catsuit said to Brenda, two days after the arrest that changed Brenda's world. 

"Did you finally figure that out?" Brenda snapped. "I mean, with a reputation like S.H.I.E.L.D. has, maybe you could have been a little quicker about it."

She could have been nicer, Brenda supposed. But it was hard to be nice when the person she'd loved most had been betraying her for years... oh, and had tried to kill one of Brenda's best friends a few times, too. 

The fact that neither the blonde agent nor the redheaded agent in the equally tight black catsuit seemed to _notice_ that she wasn't being nice just made Brenda angrier, really. 

"We did have to be certain. You were very close with your aunt," the blonde informed her, and Brenda bit down the various replies she could have retorted about that.

Because chief amongst those replies was "yeah, obviously not close enough," and that wasn't the kind of bitter that you gave to strangers.

~

 **alittlebuggy:** The new people in town are giving me a headache in the worst way.  
 **angergirl:** Yeah? Join the club, Jaime.  
 **alittlebuggy:** Point.  
 **alittlebuggy:** Brenda?  
 **alittlebuggy:** *pokes.*  
 **alittlebuggy:** Okay, it was insensitive of me. Come back?  
 **angergirl:** It's not the first time you've been *insensitive* when it's come to Tia Amparo, Jaime. **alittlebuggy:** I thought we were past that. I explained why I did that. Are you seriously still holding a grudge?  
 **angergirl has logged off.**

~

"This is your choice. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't making you join." The redheaded agent didn't seem aware that she'd said that at least two times now. 

But the blonde was pretty aware of it, because she rolled her eyes. Brenda had seen Jaime in action and she still thought that was the bravest thing she'd ever seen anyone do. 

"Yes, it's your choice. You are welcome to stay here in Texas, and try to build a life in the shadow of an aunt that nobody is ever going to let you live down or forget," the blonde answered crisply. "Or you can come to New York and actually build a life of your own. It's up to you." 

~

 **icarryabigstick:** dude, you have to quit giving jaime the silent treatment.  
 **angergirl:** I'm not.  
 **icarryabigstick:** bullshit.  
 **angergirl:** Remind me why we are friends again?  
 **icarryabigstick:** because you can't resist my natural charm and good looks.  
 **icarryabigstick:** unlike those shield chicks.  
 **angergirl:** *Chicks*, really, Paco?  
 **icarryabigstick:** nobody wants to teach me how to "handle a weapon."  
 **icarryabigstick:** not that they need to.  
 **angergirl:** They probably know it's a lost cause.  
 **icarryabigstick:** why would you offer to show jaime how to handle a weapon and not me?  
 **angergirl:** *I* wouldn't offer to show *either* of you.  
 **icarryabigstick:** which brings us back to the jaime silent treatment.  
 **icarryabigstick:** and anyway, i did the same thing he did so why aren't you pissed at me?  
 **angergirl:** I expect better things out of Jaime than I do out of you. We both know you're a jerk a lot.  
 **icarryabigstick:** gee, thanks. this is still about the hamburger, isn't it? jaime eats cows, too!  
 **icarryabigstick:** but seriously, you know jaime's sensitive.  
 **angergirl:** I'd like to sensitive you both in the nose.  
 **icarryabigstick:** see that's the kind of temper that leads to you following in La Dama's footsteps.

~

Apparently, having the blonde agent's actual number meant that an actual private plane would come get the caller. That couldn't be a good allocation of government funds. 

But if S.H.I.E.L.D. was any good at that, maybe the President wouldn't have put the dude who had tried to kill Superman a few dozen times in charge of it for a few months. 

Brenda was absolutely reminding herself of the stench of Luthor that had been all over S.H.I.E.L.D. as she watched the PR videos they'd so helpfully included as part of the trip. The videos consisted of a lot of history, as told by a white dude with an eye patch and a catsuit, and a lot of testimonials from a lot of women in catsuits about how S.H.I.E.L.D. had changed their life for the better.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. policy has forbidden discrimination based on sexual orientation since day one," one of the nameless faces on the screen informed Brenda.

Suddenly, Brenda wondered exactly what S.H.I.E.L.D. had uncovered while nosing through her belongings for two days in El Paso. 

~

 **futurelantern:** A PRIVATE PLANE.  
 **angergirl:** Part of the scholarship  
 **futurelantern:** I want a scholarship like that someday.  
 **angergirl:** I thought you wanted to be a green lantern.  
 **futurelantern:** I can't have a private plane and be a lantern?  
 **angergirl:** Of course you can.  
 **futurelantern:** Cool. You still mad at Jaime?  
 **angergirl:** Yup.

~

"I'm Kate," the woman in the purple catsuit said to Brenda when she stepped off the plane and Brenda noted that she was the first S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to actually give Brenda a name.

"Saying 'I'm Brenda' seems pretty silly, since I'm sure you already know that," Brenda answered.

Kate pushed her sunglasses up so that they were sitting in that obnoxious position on top of her head, before smiling at Brenda. "And claiming that I'm not here to sell you on the S.H.I.E.L.D. experience would be pretty silly, since you know better."

"Glad we cleared that up then." 

"Me too," And apparently no lack of enthusiasm was enough to wipe that grin off Kate's face. "I know it's your first day in New York, and normally, we'd toss you in the good ole public transportation system, but I'm working on year three here. There's no way we're _not_ taking the flying car."

~

 **icarryabigstick:** getting used to the taxi thing yet?  
 **angergirl:** You could say that.  
 **icarryabigstick:** been to the laser tag place i told you about yet?  
 **angergirl:** I did not come to New York to play laser tag.

~

"Remind me why we're going ice skating, again?" Brenda asked the woman formerly wearing a purple catsuit, but who apparently believed that an entire wardrobe could be done in purple. Or at least, that's what any rational person could grow to believe by the fact that every single clothing the agent had worn had involved some shade of purple or suspiciously-close-to-purple-but-might-technically-be-blue. The current lavender sweater and white scarf combo was a good example of that. 

"Because you're from Texas. When was the last time you had any quality ice skating?"

"Which you realize must mean that I am going to be terrible at it, yes?" 

Kate nodded solemnly. "But if you're going to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, we must test your sense of adventure." 

~

 **futurelantern:** Paco says there are two-headed alligators in the sewer in New York.  
 **angergirl:** Pretty sure it's too cold for any alligators in New York, Milagro.  
 **futurelantern:** Maybe they only come up in the summer time?  
 **angergirl:** Maybe they show up to play laser tag.

~

Apparently, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a very thorough sexual harassment policy. Because in the aftermath of a kiss that Brenda hadn't expected at all, but in retrospect seemed like a pretty obvious recruiting tool, not less than two agents had visited her temporary hotel room to document her side of events.

"It's just a _kiss_ ," Brenda said with great exasperation to the blonde woman who wasn't wearing a white catsuit. "A surprising one, but yeah, still perfectly consensual. I'm sure I'd be required to do a lot worse in the field, if I agree to become a creepy spy." 

"A creepy spy?" The woman raised an eyebrow, but she looked amused, so Brenda chalked that up as a win. "We just needed to be sure. Sending you into the field _will_ require you to do a lot of much worse things, which is why we need to make sure that your recruitment doesn't involve any unfair attempts at swaying you."

Unfair attempts at swaying? Well, that was certainly one way to describe it.

"I never would have thought a top secret spying agency would be so _fair_ ," Brenda answered. 

"Not all of us are," the woman answered simply. "There are different types of spies, Brenda, and a lot of what type of spy you are depends on why you become an agent in the first place." 

~

 **icarryabigstick:** how go the alligators?  
 **angergirl:** No go. All the alligators around here have 1 head.  
 **icarryabigstick:** so disappointing.  
 **angergirl:** Saw a 2 headed rat today.  
 **icarryabigstick:** boring. you can see 2 headed rats anywhere.  
 **icarryabigstick:** i think jaime fought one yesterday.  
 **icarryabigstick:** Still mad at jaime, huh?  
 **angergirl:** He's still a jerk.

~

Brenda made a mental note that if she followed this through and became a creepy catsuit wearing spy, she was never going to coordinate her clothes that way. Because today Kate was wearing a purple and black mini-skirt with a black shirt and totally not getting any of her hot dog all over her shirt the way Brenda was. 

"So I am sorry about the kiss. It was absolutely unplanned, and - " 

"You do realize that I don't actually believe that it was unplanned, right?" 

"You think I did it on purpose?"

"An elaborate recruiting tool, yep." 

Kate laughed and finished off her veggie hot dog, because apparently S.H.I.E.L.D. had been nosy enough to know that Brenda didn't like eating things with a face. "Well, while I'm glad it was good enough of a kiss to qualify as a recruiting tool, no. It was an honest mistake, and I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"You didn't. Kind of making me uncomfortable with your choice of lunch time foods, though. Is there a way to eat this without wearing half of it in the process?" 

Kate glanced over at her and chuckled softly. "They do tend to pile them high and ridiculous. New York tradition. Don't worry, you'll get used to it." 

Brenda was about to reply, when a very loud crash came in the direction of the vendor who had sold them their hot dogs.

"What was that?" Brenda barely had time to ask her question before Kate's bow was out and her string pulled back. 

"That was another New York tradition, sadly," Kate answered.

~

 **angergirl:** GUESS WHAT.  
 **angergirl:** If you say chicken butt, i will fly back to Texas and beat you.  
 **icarryabigstick:** chickenbutt.  
 **icarryabigstick:** see, you can still fly back, but you can't beat me, because my chickenbutt is 1 word and yours was 2.  
 **angergirl:** You are interrupting my joy here.  
 **angergirl:** Today i saw an actual superhero stop a robbery.  
 **icarryabigstick:** uh.  
 **icarryabigstick:** you kind of saw an actual superhero in action a lot.  
 **icarryabigstick:** in TEXAS.  
 **angergirl:** I'm glad you miss me so much, but the BB doesn't count.  
 **icarryabigstick:** bitter party of one?  
 **icarryabigstick:** anyway, what hero was it? cap? iron man? spidey? thor? robbery's are probably a little below thor.  
 **angergirl:** Uh  
 **angergirl:** I don't actually know which hero it was. Used a bow and arrows, though. Not that green guy.  
 **icarryabigstick:** hawkeye? he's pretty cool, i guess. not as cool as blue beetle, though.

~

"Taking out a supervillain with a well-aimed rock." Sitting on a Central Park bench the day a day later, Kate twirled her purple scarf with her fingers. "If S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want you before, they sure as hell do now." 

"That's the sort of thing that you learn growing up a tom boy," Brenda answered, because it wasn't like she could say "hey, a well-aimed rock would have helped Jaime from time to time." "Though that does make me wonder why S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted me, before they knew about my awesome rock throwing skills." 

"Three reasons, really. One you can probably guess." 

"La Dama." The viciousness in her voice surprised Brenda, and she expected more of a reaction from Kate, who just shrugged. 

"Your aunt, yes. The academic excellence was another factor. The third is your friend." 

Brenda's gut suddenly twisted into a worried knot. What had she done? Had she endangered Jaime? His family? Paco? How had they known - ? "My ... my friend?" 

Kate gave her a sympathetic look, which was exactly not the kind of look Brenda appreciated right now. "Nick Fury knows Batman's identity. He knows the names and birth places of every Avenger and Leaguer there's ever been. That he knows Blue Beetle's identity is not really that extraordinary." 

"So that's the plan? You blackmail me into joining your team?" What the hell was wrong with S.H.I.E.L.D.? One minute, they were sending gorgeous spies to kiss you, the next they were threatening to expose your friend's identity! 

"No! Though, I can see why you might think that, other than that natural suspicion you have going on. Which, I must point out, would be a great asset if you decide to join us."

"You cannot possibly know exactly how much I would like to tell _you_ and all of S.H.I.E.L.D. to go - "

"Fuck ourselves? Oh, I can imagine. Just like I can imagine exactly how angry you are at everything that's happened to you in the past few weeks." 

"You _have no idea_ ," Brenda spat, but she swallowed down the rest of it, because the little Bianca Reyes on her right shoulder reminded her that every single other word out of her mouth would be something she'd regret. 

"No idea how it feels to finally have a purpose and a place and people who loved you unconditionally for all your flaws- then suddenly have that ripped away?" Kate offered softly. "Yeah, I understand that pretty well, actually."

The softness of Kate's voice did sooth Brenda's anger a bit. So did what Kate was saying, because that was exactly what Tia Amparo and Paco and Jaime had been. After everything her father had been, after everything he'd done, they'd been the people she'd always known she could trust. 

But that wasn't true anymore.

"Was your aunt a supervillain, too?" Brenda asked hesitantly, because how else did one say in a polite way "what's your damage, exactly, since you already know mine?" 

Kate sighed and reached for her bow. Brenda wondered if she was going to _use_ it on her, before Kate sat it across her lap. "Do you know who the Young Avengers were?" 

"A terrible ripoff of the Teen Titans?" Even as angry as she was, Brenda wouldn't have said it, if she'd known that she would cause the kind of hurt that passed over Kate's face.

"We were better than the Teen Titans could ever _dream_ of being. For a while." Kate ran her fingers over the string of the bow. "Let me tell you about my favorite superhero. You probably haven't heard of her, either, but her name was Stature."

~

 **angergirl:** I'm sorry.  
 **alittlebuggy:** She speaks!  
 **alittlebuggy:** What are you sorry for?  
 **angergirl:** For giving you the silent treatment.  
 **alittlebuggy:** You know I wasn't trying to hurt you, right?  
 **alittlebuggy:** I was trying to be protect you.  
 **alittlebuggy:** Kind of messed that up.  
 **angergirl:** You should go hug Paco.  
 **angergirl:** And your mom.  
 **angergirl:** And your dad  
 **angergirl:** And Milagro  
 **alittlebuggy:** The last time I hugged Milagro she asked if I was possessed by any *more* aliens.  
 **angergirl:** And then you should go hug Paco again and tell him it's from me.  
 **alittlebuggy:** Are you okay?  
 **angergirl:** I'm fine.  
 **alittlebuggy:** Your handle is angergirl. You're telling me to go hug people.  
 **alittlebuggy:** I'm confused and concerned.  
 **angergirl:** I'm fine.  
 **angergirl:** I just finished a pretty sad story.

~

New York pizza was superior in every way to the veggie hot dogs, and not nearly as messy, Brenda decided two days later, as she and Kate sat in Brenda's hotel room and split a box.

"So have you made your decision yet?" Kate asked. "Or is the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to scoop you up before you join the dark side still keeping you from making your decision?" 

"It's a little creepy. Don't you think it's creepy?"

"It's a little creepy. But from their point of view, you're split down the middle between a hero and a villain, and we've had enough heroes go rogue. We really don't need anymore of that. Same reason they badgered me into joining, after our team disbanded." 

"What made you change you mind?" Brenda asked. "I mean, you said you quit after the ... incident with Doom. That your whole team gave up. That seems like a pretty reasonable response, so what made you change your mind?" 

"I told them to go fuck themselves the first time they asked," Kate answered. "The look on Captain America's face was priceless, let me tell you." 

"Ha, I bet."

"All I wanted to do was go home and wallow. And cry. There was a lot of that. Cassie would have kicked my ass." Kate gave a small smile at the mention of her friend. "But every time I turned on the tv, something new and terrible was happening."

"Yeah, there really doesn't seem to be any shortage of that," Brenda agreed. "The capes can't quite stop it, and neither can S.H.I.E.L.D." 

"No, they can't. Bad things are always going to happen."

"That's what we call the acceptance stage of grief, then?" Brenda said sarcastically.

"I think the idea of acceptance is bullshit," Kate answered as she fiddled with the cap of her water bottle. "I'm never going to _accept_ losing my best friend. But I'm going to acknowledge that her death did save us, and that's a good thing. I'm going to focus on that good thing as much as I can, and all the good things she did before that, more than I'm going to wallow in that one bad moment. Because her sacrifice deserves that much. And I'm going to keep fighting, because I couldn't stop the last Doom, but I _will_ stop the next one." 

"I'm not sure my awesome rock throwing skills are going to be good enough to take on a Doom," Brenda admitted. "Or even La Dama." 

"Well, that's what S.H.I.E.L.D. training is for. To help you take on the La Damas and Dooms of the world," Kate replied. "And to make sure you will never again let another partner down." 

~

 **icarryabigstick:** so you have a sexy college girlfriend yet?  
 **angergirl:** There might be someone.  
 **icarryabigstick:** is she hot?  
 **angergirl:** She is. If you're very lucky, you might just get to meet her.

~

Three weeks into training, the workouts with Agent Romanova stopped feeling like the organization was trying to kill her and the target practice with Kate stopped being so embarrassing.

Field training with Agent Morse was never going to stop kicking her ass, though, and Brenda was happy to get to her hotel room and just collapse. 

"Bath too much of an effort?" Kate asked, plopping down on the bed next to Brenda. 

Brenda groaned as Kate's body weight shook the bed. "Can't move." 

"You think this is bad, wait til you reach Agent Carter's level," Kate promised with far too much mirth in her voice for someone who was being a harbinger of such obviously bad things. "Her training's twice as long and twice as tough. Your _eyelids_ will hurt." 

"They already do. Seriously, I fell asleep in the middle of a conversation with Paco last night. I had to make up some thing about the psych reading being too boring."

"Well, when you get to the psych training, boring is probably the last thing you'll ever call it," Kate teased, because the situation had to be humorous to one of them.

"I'm not sure my friendships are going to survive," Brenda said, and it did not come out as teasingly as she'd intended. She chalked that up to being tired.

"They will if you want them to." 

Brenda cracked one of her sore eyelids open. "You still talk to the rest of your old group?" 

"One's in pre-law in Arizona, two are living together in Metropolis and trying to figure out what they want to do in life, and the other moved to Central City. I'm not sure whether he's flirting with the Flash, bugging the poor man, or trying to get adopted. I'm not sure he knows, either," Kate retorted, and the amusement in her voice told Brenda that they were definitely going to be meeting Tommy someday.

But for now, keeping her sore eyelids open was too much of a chore. 

~

 **alittlebuggy:** Between college, my extracurriculars and Paco, there's not enough Jaime to go around.  
 **angergirl:** You must be EXHAUSTED.  
 **alittlebuggy:** You have no idea.  
 **angergirl:** XD

~

"So, your first day as an official agent and we're getting sent to investigate Brother Blood's recruitment activities at NYU," Kate said with an appreciative whistle. "Not a bad first start at all. You think you're up for it?"

"Oh, yeah," Brenda said confidentially. "I'm ready."  
  



End file.
